It's been over 30 years since the Iran-Iraq war came to an end. The war, which started in 1980 and lasted eight years, was one of the longest international armed conflicts of the 20th century. During the war and up until 1990, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) was involved in carrying out various humanitarian activities, including visiting places of detention, helping with exchange of Red Cross messages containing brief family news, repatriation of prisoners of war (PoW) and handing over of mortal remains. The Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS) was also involved in some humanitarian operations in this regard.
On this occasion, and to commemorate a small but significant part of the 150-year-long history of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement's humanitarian activities, the IRCS and the ICRC held a photo exhibition capturing some of the Iran-Iraq PoW repatriation operations and conceptual pieces of art entitled "Repatriation Flight". The aim was to highlight the humanitarian activities of the IRCS and the ICRC, and to underscore the indispensable principles of neutrality, impartiality and independence as the fundamentals of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement.
The opening ceremony for the exhibition took place on 7 October 2018 in the presence of high-level officials of the IRCS, including Secretary-General Mohammadi Nasab, the Representative of the Supreme Leader in the IRCS, Hojatoleslam Moezi, the Commander of the Search and Recovery Committee of Islamic Republic of Iran HQ of Armed Forces, General Bagherzadeh, as well as deputy head of the ICRC delegation in Tehran, Marc Achermann.
During the opening ceremony, Secretary-General Mohammadi Nasab stated that the joint exhibition included photos from the archives of the ICRC and the IRCS, some of which were being displayed for the first time.
General Bagherzadeh, who attended the opening ceremony, also praised the event, calling for it to be held in other places in Iran.
Meanwhile, ICRC's Marc Achermann, in an interview with an Iranian news agency, stated that the materials used in the exhibition were publicly available. But it was the first time they were being seen together in one exhibition with a touch of conceptual art.
Since the start of the Iran-Iraq war in 1980 until its end in 1988, the ICRC, accompanied by its Movement partners, was involved in 17 phases of repatriation of Iraqi PoWs and 18 phases of repatriation of Iranian PoWs, where a total of 717 Iraqi PoWs and 718 Iranian PoWs were repatriated. During the war, the ICRC was invited by the parties to the conflict to be involved in repatriation of seriously wounded as well as seriously sick prisoners, and of civilians. The first operation of this kind took place on 16 June 1981. An ICRC documentary on this first repatriation operation was played for the first time during the opening ceremony of this exhibition.
"Repatriation Flight" was organized at the Peace Gallery of the IRCS's National Museum and Archive in Tehran from 7 to 22 October 2018. It is planned to be organized in other cities of Iran in the future.
